


Can't Let Go

by KyeAbove



Series: The Reinforcement Of Agony AU [87]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 17:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13415955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyeAbove/pseuds/KyeAbove
Summary: Henry pulls his Searcher friend out of the ink, and towards some kind of freedom.





	Can't Let Go

~October ?, 1963~

* * *

 

Maybe it was all the time he’d spent around it, but the ink seemed to respond to Henry now. Puddles would separate so he could pass without stepping through the black liquid. He was able to form and reform weapons as long as they were made from ink. To name just a few of the conveniences he’d come across

It was rather useful. It did little to help his problems with the ink creatures, unfortunately, but he figured that was a given. They were people looking for escape.

Or revenge, in Joey’s case.

Henry didn't regret ending whatever he had with Joey. But it was a mistake to leave everyone else he cared about behind.

Henry knew every ink creature was a person. Corrupted now, but once a free thinking individual. Maybe they weren't all people Henry knew, but his friends had to be among these puddles, or behind the faces of toons.

The Ink Demon and Boris were the only Toons whose human identities he could place.

Joey had made his clear. Henry felt his face, pressing lightly on the wound from the Ink Demon's claws as he’d swiped at Henry. Bitterly saying his name, with all the heartbreak that Joey had spoken all those years ago too.

Back in the safehouse, Henry had realized that the collage of posters had formed a dead ringer portrait of Wally Franks. It had been clear and tragic, even before Wally had his first moment of lucidity in Henry's presence.

Then, there were the others.

Henry had recognized Sammy from his voice, and Norman for his habits.

Then there was Alice. She had known who Henry was, but Henry certainly didn't know who she was. He heavily suspected she was the Susie in all those recordings and Sammy's tales of better and worse times, but Henry had no true way of knowing. Whenever he directly asked Sammy about her, he stopped talking to Henry for the day.

Anyone else, he couldn't say. The Butcher Gang clones he encountered either had no voices to answer his questions if they even could, or only spoke in echos. Nor did any have stand out features of the humans they could have once been. Striker had a brown human eye, but it was far too common a color and far too many years to place such a feature to a face.

Of course, the Searchers were lost causes in all attempts to communicate or understand.

That is, except for one.

His friend had disappeared for some time, while Henry had been rescuing Wally from Alice. But soon enough, he saw the peculiar Searcher once again. Like always, it watched, staying away from Henry as all other Searchers surrounded him.

As each Searcher fell back into ink with each blow of Henry's axe, the Searcher flinched. No doubt, the Searcher knew as well as Henry that these were once treasured friends.

It hurt every time. All these people knew now was pain and suffering. All because Henry had left. He knew he wasn't the only factor. Francis’s death had freaked Joey out, putting him on the path of rejecting death. Yet, while Henry couldn't have done much to calm it, he should have helped control the reaction.

He should have listened to his animators. But leaving had felt like the best option. Truly right, until he was cutting through Searcher by Searcher, hearing tapes, and learning all the horror that had befallen his loved ones.

The last raging Searcher fell screaming as Henry bemoaned this destruction. Henry expected that by some cruel irony, it could have been one of his dearest friends. Maybe that Searcher had been Ollie, who’s now grown daughter knew him as nothing more than a name. Or could have it been Tobias? Len?

Henry looked over at his friend, who had not slunk back into the ink. Prepared for the first time with words, Henry approached the lone Searcher.

The Searcher shrunk back, fearful of Henry, so Henry dropped his axe and held his hands up, trusting his gut feeling.

“Please forgive me. For all this.” Even though the Searcher had no discernible eyes, Henry felt its studying gaze.

Then it started to cry. Its cries could only be more horrific if the Searcher was still physically human. It hunched over from there and cried louder into its hands.

It seemed to have been waiting for permission to feel the grief of almost three decades with its humanity lost to it. Trapped in ink, and left to suffer.

Henry couldn't take it, and began crying too.

“Who was Joey to hurt you like this? Treat you like you’re nothing? You're a human being.”

The Searcher nodded in response, the tear-like ink dripping off its face and falling into the puddle below it.

“I don't know how I can help, but I’m sure as Joey Drew is better off dead that I will find a way.” Henry stepped closer to the ink puddle, and it shuddered at his presence. A single hope crossed Henry's mind and heart. “I wonder…give me your hand.”

Henry held his hand out, and the Searcher took it, although it was clear from its movement that it did not quite understand what was going on. Henry wasn't sure he knew either.

“Now try to stand out of the ink.”

Maybe because it had nothing else to live for, the Searcher obeyed. To its surprise, and even Henry's, legs formed as the Searcher stood and Henry pulled it up the rest of the way. Out of the ink puddle’s hold.

The Searcher starred up at Henry, probably in shock, before looking down.

The Searcher wrote something out on the floor.

**T I M**

“Tim...you're Timmy. God, son.” Henry sat down, and hugged Timmy, and Timmy hugged back. “I’m sorry. I _never_ should have left you and the others."

Timmy started to cry again, but maybe this crying was a little happier than before.


End file.
